Here is an essay on ‘Business Acumen’ for class 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on ‘Business Acumen’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay on Business Acumen
Essay Contents:
- Essay on Innovation
- Essay on Attitude
- Essay on Social Capital
- Essay on Managerial Resourcefulness
- Essay on the Acumen to Manage Human Resource
Essay on Business Acumen # 1. Innovation:
Innovation, by its very nature, disrupts the equilibrium of a competitive market and causes uncertainty. To confront it, the enterprise must innovate further competition driven innovation, central to technical progress and responsible for keeping large corporation vibrant, however, creates peculiar difficulties for the new farm.
As research and design budgets and technical change accelerates, innovation becomes even more focused and competitive. Markets take unanticipated paths hammered by the onslaught of innovators. New products spring up and disappear before people have a change to look at them and the inventors have time to exploit the gain of their creation.
The scale of creative destruction wrought by entrepreneurs trying to break into rival markets using the innovative edge of their products and processes has been, of late, growing increasingly discomforting. No wonder, the closure rates are mounting and the steady advancements in knowledge continue to leave behind entrepreneurial mass graves.
It seems, new enterprise in the next century is going to awaken to a competitive reality that is both overwhelming and scary. Entrepreneurs everywhere are now facing the classic.
As efficiency standards rise, survival becomes increasingly difficult for new enterprises. Effective management and exploitation of change of this magnitude and complexity is extremely difficult. Under such intense uncertainty, there seems to be no guarantee of payoffs from any programme to improve technology.
To innovate or not is the question which-haunts the new business. Due to the random and accidental nature of inventions and innovations, even in a non-competitive research milieu, there can be no formula for success from innovation, which depends on information for which the requirement cannot be anticipated on definitive terms and therefore, cannot be programmed. Calculating profitability of a new process is more difficult than is usually acknowledged.
The failure to manage innovation is the most discouraging part of its history. The issue central to successful innovation is most merely to run fast, but also to run in the right direction. You cannot come back if you follow a wrong lead because before that one of your rivals must have already reached the goal. Failure, thus, could be costly many times over. For a start-up, following multiple leads is difficult due to both resource crunch and inability to develop and market an unintended discovery.
The small business thus must be both competent to have inventive genius and fortunate to be groping in the right darkness. In competition with a large corporation which has the advantage of some illumination due to its past groping experience and has resources to fumble simultaneously in several alleys, the new enterprise is handicapped. It is one thing to operationalize a principle, but totally different to refine, make it cost effective, and put it successfully in a market of increasingly discerning customers.
The new realities of competitive innovation have enhanced the uncertainty facing small business and have raised the chances of its failure. In such a state, to stake your fortunes on innovation is a difficult and discouraging option. Not to innovate is equally daunting, since the productivity, profit, and growth of enterprise are all closely linked to an organization’s ability to innovate successfully.
The survival is an aim more urgent than all above, however, is too obvious to be stressed. Though it would be churlish to claim that all start-ups must survive and grow, high fatality of nascent business is both undesirable. Every failed enterprise leaves in its wake a large number of entrepreneurial hopes and despairs are contagious.
Budding entrepreneurs are affected by the fate of previous entrepreneurial attempts. It is true that entrepreneurial plunges are not always discouraged by prospects of failure and if only the mathematical probability of success were to be the basis of enterprise formation, no new enterprise would ever be formed.
The essence of that strategy is outline here. Imitate the technology that has proved itself, sell the product that is a winner and accumulate the experience of administrating a success. Learn to understand and handle the economy, financial and legal complexities of business when you do not have to bother about technical change and marketability. Then slowly change gear, invest in R and D and bring under scrutiny both your buyer and technology to see how and where to they are changing.
Concentrate on one fundamental issue in which way the technology at your command can be marginally moulded to create a slightly different variant of the products to cater to an emerging or hitherto unfulfilled need. Once you have done that, you have broken away from your umpteen peers who spend a lifetime imitation. This incremental change should be the mainstay of your strategy unit you have the resources, skill and experience to break new grounds.
Essay on Business Acumen # 2. Attitude:
It was the legendary George Bernard Shaw who once wrote. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress thus depends on this unreasonable person.
Entrepreneurship is generally understood as a pursuit of opportunity without limiting oneself to the accepted within the existing norms and confines of an organization.
A viable alternative to the personality and demographic approaches is the use of attitudes in predicting behaviourial tendencies. Social-psychological theories view attitude as the predisposition to respond in a generally favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to the object of the attitude.
The set of attitudes measured by this scale therefore covered a total of five dimensions: innovation business, perceived personal control in business, achievement in business, and perceived self-esteem in business and taking advantage of opportunities in business.
The importance of risk-taking in business has been emphasized by many. Attempts to distinguish entrepreneurs on their risk-taking propensity have produced conflicting. These results highlight the significance of loss an important aspect in risk-taking, which is often ignored in entrepreneurial and managerial studies. The riskiness in business ventures, which has been the main stumbling block for many, is not the low probability of success but the high stakes involved in entrepreneurship.
Research on the risk-taking propensity of entrepreneurs has also produced conflicting results. Hull, Bosley and Udell (1980), in their study of university alumni, found risk-taking to be an important factor influencing an individual’s likelihood of starting a business, risk-taking is inherent in entrepreneurship.
However, studies on the risk-taking propensity of entrepreneurs have indicated that entrepreneurs and managers do not differ significantly in this regard from managers. Atkinson and Raynor (1974) and McCelland (1961) have advanced the explanation that people high on achievement motivation, prefer moderately risk ventures.
Essay on Business Acumen # 3. Social Capital:
Social capital is an attribute that is created in interactions among people, which increases the strength and value of personal qualities like intelligence and work experience and is manifested in norms and networks that enable people to act collectively. Social capital is commonly defined as “information, trust and norms of reciprocity inherent in one’s social networks.” This social capital may have positive effects on entrepreneurial activities.
A scholar makes a distinction between two specific dimensions of social capital, namely, bridging (or inclusive) and bonding (or exclusive). The bridging networks are open for access to external assets and facilitate information diffusion, whereas bonding social capital is good for mobilizing solidarity but may ‘create strong out-group antagonism’, which could limit entrepreneurial potentials.
Social capital related to subcultures and ethnic enclaves often seems to combine the bonding qualities and non-acculturation with bridging networks to related ethnic group in other geographical settings. This can be observed among trade diaspora in various parts of the world.
Social capital is spread and exchanged through social networks. Social capital of various groups or sub-cultures may reflect different levels of trust in social relationship and have an impact on information search and transaction costs. Social capital is also responsible for creating norms of behaviour and forms the basis for accumulation of human capital.
A social capital that is conducive to entrepreneurship is closely related to social skills. Authors have argued that a high degree of social perception and adaptability, ability to induce liking and a favourable first impression and to persuade and influence others are of social importance for entrepreneurial endeavour.
Social skills provide an entrepreneur with a competitive advantage in the networking process, and like the social network, they are an integral part of the social capital. Social skills are seen to develop due to factors like in-group solidarity, pride, mobility, and education.
Another important aspect of any business culture is the extent to which it promotes intra- and inter-community trust. Social networks are ways which entrepreneurs to reduce transaction costs and risks. They also aid in the process of learning and information dissemination.
Essay on Business Acumen # 4. Managerial Resourcefulness:
Managerial resourcefulness, as defined, is a set of generic competencies that enable adaptive responses to the demands of the managerial role. Conceptualized in the manner, competencies are basic, critical components of a successful manager’s repertoire. They can be considered as inner resources that managers possess which help them to deal with non-routine and often stressful or challenging situations.
Such situations require a variety of adaptive response ranging from emotional control in the face of strong emotions, to cognitive in information processing (planning, problem solving, decision-making, etc.), perseverance in the face of hurdles and distractions. Managers who possess these competencies are considered more resourceful than managers who do not possess them.
The resourcefulness framework outlines three types of generic competencies that constitute managerial resourcefulness. The first, affective competence, deals primarily with emotional control in situations that can provoke strong emotions. Specific examples include control of aggressive tendencies against goal-blocking agencies, control of fear of failure or consequences of goal directed actions, control of hopelessness or depressions, of excitement that many interfere with goal attainment, developing equanimity, and coping with the delayed gratification.
The second, intellectual competence, in problem solving and the capacity for self-reflection, specifically, it refers to capabilities dealing with information gathering, analytical and synthetic thinking, analogical reasoning goal analysis in terms of components and linkages or dependencies among components, planning and evaluation of alternative courses of action, etc. The third, action oriented competence, refers to task related capabilities like attention to deal, persistence, concern for the time-frame, and people-oriented capabilities sensitivity and empathy.
Thus, a resourceful manager is one who shows competence in regulating his/ her emotions or feelings, thoughts and actions. Although resourcefulness involves self-control procedures to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts and action orientation, at the deepest level, self-control producers represent a set of cognitions regarding one’s own that ultimately determine the emotion, thoughts and behavioural processes.
Essay on Business Acumen # 5. Acumen to Manage Human Resource:
Owner-managers and senior managers of small enterprises have often expressed that the main problems related to human resource management (HRM) in their enterprises are attracting talent, motivating employees and retaining key employees. They reason that small enterprises lack resources to advertise for positions, pay salaries in the range of large organizations and train employees.
They face the addition problem of not having enough hierarchical layers to regularly promote employees. It has also been said that employees complain that they cannot learn much and find the job content monotonous. Hence, owner-managers of such enterprises are hesitant to provide external and costly training to their employees because they fear that after such training, will either demand very high salaries or leave the organization for better prospects. Human resource management in small enterprises has not got the attention it deserves from both researchers and entrepreneurs.
In small enterprises, owner-managers are responsible for decisions related to human resources. Their managerial style has a direct influence on the HRM practices. Owing to the small size of the organization, the motivation and morale of each employee has a direct and visible influence on the productivity of the organization.
It has also been found that at a certain point, entrepreneurs are reluctant to give up control because of the belief that formalization might take management of the enterprise beyond their capacity and out of their hands. However, lack of attention by owner-manager in developing and formalizing HRM systems create barriers to organization growth.
Conclusion:
Livestock business like all other small enterprises requires an optimal degree of business acumen among the entrepreneurs. Not all the abilities may be present in a budding entrepreneur; however, with persistence and guidance this acumen can be developed. Conclusively one thing can be said for certain that the success of any enterprise depends largely on the development and exhibition of business acumen.